1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for handling a plurality of generally similar elements and more particularly to an apparatus for moving a plurality of irregularly shaped utensils from a stored condition to a remote location in a prearranged or preselected manner and subsequently to deposit them in receptacles such as boxes, trays or other containers positioned nearby.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A recent review of the prior art regarding various techniques to automate the handling a plurality of irregularly shaped plastic utensils can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,337,718. That is, it turns out that there have been numerous prior art devices which have been shown to orderly remove uniformly or symmetrically configured objects at or from a remote location. Most of these devices deal with cylindrically shaped articles such as those resulting from the continuous cutting of pipe or other such material. See for example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,159,851. Handling a cylindrical object is considerably less troublesome, since its circular nature results in predictable behavior as it is moved and deposited to a remote location.
It should also be noted that the '718 patent itself described an apparatus for removing a plurality of irregularly shaped plastic eating utensils from a hopper, to a different location, by the combination of a hopper with a ladder conveyor. The hopper described therein was a narrow hopper the width equal to one length of the eating utensil, and into which the utensils had to be systematically stacked in a semi-orientated position. As will be described more fully in the following sections, this particular device does not have many of the advantages of the present invention.
In addition to the above, it is worth noting that one of the inventors of this application is familiar with a prior art device which involved the combination of a hopper and ladder conveyor, which was directed at sorting cylindrical writing markers for packaging, of more uniform configuration than the irregularly shaped objects disclosed herein.
Accordingly, there has been a need to utilize automatic equipment for handling large volumes or irregularly configured objects such as plastic eating utensils. Packaged, ready to eat food for airlines and other forms of transportation as well as for retail outlets which require such objects entail a considerable amount of people and a great deal of time to prepare. Certain devices of this nature, aimed at automation, have also been reported (see, e.g., U.S. Pat. No. 4,892,182). However, there still appears to be nothing in the marketplace that automatically engages such utensils and ultimately delivers them in an appropriate receptacle in a sequential manner so that a moving endless array of such receptacles can be brought into proximity with the device to receive one or more such utensils without manual assistance.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to address the long felt need for automatic machinery to handle irregularly shaped, high volume items.
It is also an object of this invention to package, automatically, irregularly shaped linear items such as plastic eating utensils from a random unorientated state as they are delivered from a molding machine.
It is still a further object of this invention to automatically unscramble plastic cutlery, again, in the interests of providing such plastic cutlery to some downstream packaging procedure.
In particular, it is a specific object of this invention to interface a special shaped hopper, with a ladder conveyor, in such a manner as to align the linear shaped products parallel to one another and transversely to the ladder conveyor lifting means, for the purpose of singulating plastic eating utensils for further processes, such as packaging.
Finally, it is an object of the invention to interface the above mentioned hopper/ladder conveyor device with a random to continuous feed system, followed by an interface with a perpendicular feed conveyor, which results in an overall highly efficient automated system for the packaging of irregularly shaped plastic products.